


All Falls Down

by superfluouskeys



Series: 9 Days of Fic for 900 Followers [9]
Category: Prisoner (TV), Prisoner: Cell Block H
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Past Child Abuse, fake dating au, will never be over these two thanks for checking in!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:55:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: There's a moment when Joan wants to say something, and knows she's meant to, but the words don't come.  If she says the words, then the charade will end, and she'll be alone again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this one bears more explanation than "I do what I want". 
> 
> I did an ask game on tumblr which was the fanfic trope version of fmk, with the options being slow burn, fake date, enemies to lovers. I was offered PCBH Joan, PCBH Vera, and Wentworth Joan. The thing that was making me tear up at random about Joan Ferguson at that particular moment is the way she sometimes deals with knowing everyone is against her--by being aggressively for it. Smiling, but radiating hatred. And I thought man, I know it doesn't sound likely, but I'd kinda love to fake-date 80s Joan.
> 
> So at the same time, several months ago because I am Slow, I was collecting prompts to celebrate having 900 followers, and my beloved and treasured friend @misslestrange274 said, "listen i kinda love that idea can you make it work."
> 
> And the answer is I don't know but I will definitely try...and it probably will not be as fun as it sounds hahaha. Which is to say I took this in kind of a dark direction but it has a happy ending. I decided it needed a little more room to grow, but it'll probably be like 3 parts of comparable length.

There's a moment where Joan wants to say something, but doesn't.  It's something someone said at work when they thought she wasn't listening, and it's the silence that followed.  But Terri wanted to have a drink with her, anyway, and she's unusually subdued, and Joan wants to say something, can tell that she's meant to, but cannot bring herself to do it.

They leave in strained silence, and again Joan wants to speak, but the words catch in her throat, somehow far too big and too loud for such a small space.  When Terri drops her off at home, she can hardly even cobble together some miserable excuse for a goodbye before Terri says, "Thanks for the company, Joan, sorry I wasn't much fun," leans over, wraps an arm about her shoulders, and kisses her cheek.

Like it's nothing.  Like it's a normal thing to do.

It's all Joan can do not to stare, slack-jawed and silent.

She mutters some unknowable string of syllables, stands dumbfounded in the driveway until the car has driven out of sight, and makes up her mind never to say what's in her heart.  Joan can't remember the last time someone treated her so kindly.  She won't risk that on something so volatile as a feeling.

* * *

Rumours spread, anyway.  Joan can't help but to feel responsible.

"Don't be ridiculous, Joan, it isn't your fault at all!" Terri cries, but the hand that's holding the prisoners' newspaper is trembling.

Joan bites down on the skin of her finger, uses the pain to focus.  "No, it's...it happens, it always happens.  They hate me, so they drag anyone who's halfway decent to me through the gutter."

Terri stops pacing.  "Well that hardly means you don't deserve decency, Joan."

Joan looks up, not a little surprised.  _Doesn't it?_ she narrowly avoids asking.

Terri holds her gaze a moment too long, but then her brow furrows and she throws the paper into the waste bin with a vengeance.  "Well, that settles it," she says.  "I'm giving my notice."

"No!" Joan cries, and she's on her feet before she fully realizes she's spoken aloud.  The notion hurts, positively wounds, because she'd hardly noticed how unpleasant her life was until she'd gotten a taste of something sweeter, hardly noticed how horrible everyone was to her until someone showed her compassion, and she can't go back!

Terri turns, surprised.  "It's all right, Joan, better now than later," she says with a shrug.

"You can't let them do this!" Joan presses, reaches out vaguely for nothing.

To her surprise, Terri takes her barely-outstretched hands.  "I'd rather leave before they ship me off across the country," she says, so kindly it aches.  "They wouldn't transfer you—no one will say it, but you're clearly the best officer they have.  Me?" she shrugs.  "Well, my parents will be thrilled.  They never liked this job."

Joan shakes her head, the words she wants to say failing her miserably.  "But you're _good_ ," she says, and isn't certain whether she means _at the job_ or _to her_.

Terri's sad smile widens, and she squeezes Joan's hands.  "You know," she says thoughtfully, "I've always gotten along fine wherever I went, but I've never been very good at making real friends.  You're a real friend, Joan."  Terri reaches up and touches Joan's face, and it's too much to take in, and Joan thinks she might be struggling not to cry.  "I hope you don't think you'll be rid of me just because I'm not at Wentworth anymore."

"Terri—"

But before Joan can even begin to form a thought, she hears someone entering the break room.  Instinctively, she makes to pull away from Terri, but Terri doesn't seem to notice, doesn't seem to care, and Joan is trapped in a situation she knows by heart: she'll be painted as the aggressor, Terri as the victim, even though it was nothing.

"Everything all right, ladies?" Cruikshank.  Of course.

Joan very nearly erupts into a string of unhelpful retorts, but Terri saves them both with the calm that comes of not fully comprehending the context.  "Not really, I'm afraid."

Cruikshank nods sagely.  Joan loathes his face in silence.  "Heard about the newspaper.  Right bit of bad luck there.  But...there's no truth to it, of course?"

" _Honestly_ ," Joan scoffs and reaches for her cigarettes.

"That's rather beside the point," says Terri, an odd choice of words that Joan can already feel haunting her in the lonely weeks to come.  "It won't get better, and I'd rather not wait it out and risk a transfer."

Cruikshank is twisting up his stupid face like he's working up to something.  Joan can actually feel her blood pressure rising.

"Well, not to...it's your business, of course, but I did just stroll in here to find you two looking awfully cosy.  You can't exactly blame the prisoners for—"

"Oh, you do think highly of yourself!" Joan practically erupts from her chair before she's even fully sat down.  "You, who coddled that vindictive incompetent Rodgers—"

"Heather Rodgers was fired because of you!"

"Heather Rodgers," Joan bites back, "was fired because she conspired with the prisoners _against_ me.  And now I see you've chosen to side with the mongrels yet again."  She laughs coldly.  "I shouldn't be surprised.  Anything would be preferable to someone in this place having my back for once!"

"So, what, you're saying that was nothing just now?" Cruikshank's face twists up into a terrible approximation of a smirk.  "You're saying you haven't been eyeing her since they somehow let you back in here?"

"Please!" Terri cries tremulously, and much of Joan's fire leaves her. 

Fleetingly, but with a force that feels tangible, Joan longs for a world where she could cross the room to comfort Terri.

"You have a lot to say about Joan, Mr. Cruikshank," says Terri, obviously just shy of shedding tears, "but you're being very cruel."

Cruikshank gestures vaguely.  "I'm trying to—"

"Joan hasn't done anything," Terri stops him firmly.  "Whatever you're trying to do, won't you please just stop?  Not that it's any of your business, really, but it seems like you ought to be able to tell that I'm upset because I don't want to leave, and Joan was comforting me!  That's all!  Just...just leave it, won't you?"

Terri storms out of the room, and Cruikshank, imbecile that he is, follows her.  Joan collapses into her chair and lights her cigarette with a trembling hand.  She takes a drag and closes her eyes, and longs for a world where she could stop him, where she could stop any of this.

* * *

The governor lets Terri leave without finishing her notice.  Terri doesn't understand why, and Joan doesn't have the heart to explain.  They go out for drinks after Terri's last shift, and Joan honestly expects that to be the last time she ever sees or hears from Terri.

When Terri calls her at the end of the week and asks her to go out for a drink, Joan nearly drops the receiver.

Seeing her again is almost painful.

"Joan!"  Terri stands with energy, but then she hesitates by her bar stool, wringing her hands in front of her.  She's all made up, dark lashes and pink lips, and wearing a dress—a far cry from anything Joan has seen of her.

"Well," Joan breathes, holds out her hands as though reaching for the words that fail her.  "Don't you look different?  From prison officer to glamour girl!"

But Terri's smile widens, and she takes what little invitation has been offered.  "Do you like it?" she asks but before Joan has time to formulate a sentence, she's thrown her arms about Joan's neck.

Joan doesn't know what she says.  She's not sure it's comprehensible.

They order their drinks and Terri effuses about her new job.  Her enthusiasm is one of the things Joan likes best about her, even if she doesn't fully understand it.  Joan can't remember the last time she felt so excited about anything.  She always thinks of the potential pitfalls, the way things might take a turn for the worse.  Terri entertains no such dismal foresight.

"He's gone out of his way to make me feel welcome," Terri is saying of her new boss, but suddenly something in her tone rings a little wrong.  "Offered to drive me home after both of the company lunches I've been to so far—not every boss would do that."

Joan scoffs into her drink.  "Not unless they're on the make."

Terri hesitates a moment.  "That's what my  flatmate thinks, too," she says. "Only she acts like it's a good thing."

Joan looks up.  "Isn't it?"

Terri groans and rolls her head back melodramatically, and the change in demeanour is a welcome one.  Joan has never seen Terri looking so hesitant, and the sight has unnerved her more than she cares to consider.

"Of course it isn't!" Terri says.  "Here I've just gone and uprooted my whole life, and my new boss of all people has decided to take an interest!  And don't misunderstand me, he's really a nice fellow, but you know what those types are like, always pushing and pulling at you, and he's the boss, so it's rude to say no, and—" she sighs, shakes her head, and takes a long sip of her drink.

"Perhaps I'm overreacting," she says firmly, and then her brilliant smile returns.  "I'm sure I am.  Everyone loves him.  It's just I'm a little paranoid, I guess.  Anyway, while we're on the subject, I sort of wanted to ask you for a favour."

"Oh?"

"There's this party next week," Terri continues.  "Everyone who works in the office will be there, and we're allowed a plus one, and I wondered if you might go with me?"

"Go...with you?" Joan echoes stupidly.

"I know it's not really your scene, but—" Terri's hand lands upon Joan's forearm, and Joan struggles not to flinch  "—it would mean a lot to me to have you there."

Long ago, when she'd grown tired of feeling excluded, Joan concocted an image of herself as a person who does not enjoy socializing.  She's done a rather good job of it if she does say so—sometimes she, herself, forgets that it is an act.

"Sure.  Of course," Joan thinks she hears herself murmur.  _Anything for you_ , she narrowly avoids adding.

And before she's finished reeling from the shock of such an unexpected invitation, Terri's arms are around her neck once more, and there's nothing she can do for the sharp inhalation that follows, nor for the way her heart stops when she becomes aware of a conversation occurring behind her.

"My god."

"I know."

"I mean, really.  In public?"

"Disgusting."

 Joan pushes Terri gently away from her and curls her fingers carefully around her glass.  She can feel the couple at the table behind them glaring, can feel Terri staring at her, wide-eyed, not hearing or perhaps not understanding.

"Joan?"

And Joan wants to say something, knows she's meant to, feels the words burning at the back of her throat.  But she doesn't.  Instead, she takes a pointed sip of her drink, drowns out what she has vowed never to confess, and pretends nothing has happened.

Joan has never thought of herself as a coward.

* * *

Joan got into her first fight when she was twelve years old.

There had been little things before that.  Meaningless squabbles with her brothers, and the occasional shove she'd been taught to ignore, even as rage welled inside her.  People had never really taken to Joan, and their inexplicable distaste only worsened as she grew older.  That year,  a new girl had transferred into the school, and she'd been nice to Joan—hadn't understood, or had perhaps deliberately ignored Joan's unspoken social station.  This had been more than enough to begin a fateful rumour.

In retrospect the whole thing had been unnervingly coordinated for a bunch of children—the sort of thing she sees prisoners come up with now.  The teachers and the girl in question had suddenly and quite mysteriously been nowhere in sight, and one wrong step had left Joan cornered and surrounded.

She'd come home with her face all busted up, limping and clutching her stomach, expecting sympathy.  She'd done everything she was supposed to—had ignored the cruel words and the pointed looks and the not-quite-accidental shoves, and when they'd hit her, she hadn't fought back, hadn't said so much as a word in her own defense.

Joan can never forget what her mother said to her when she set eyes upon her, bleary-eyed and bleeding.

"What the hell's the matter with you?"

It's been nearly thirty years, and she still remembers keenly the way she felt in that moment, the way her lip quivered and fresh tears welled up in her eyes as she struggled to find the words to explain what had happened.  Surely her mother would understand, she'd thought, if she could just explain.

The first slap across the face was the worst.  Indeed, it remains to this day the worst thing Joan has ever experienced.  Worse than the kids that held her arms and kicked her in the stomach, worse than the prisoners that came after her with bats, worse than every bashing she took from her mother, on that day and onward.

Her mother was harsh, demanding, even cruel, but before that moment, Joan had never thought her mother would really hurt her.  The revelation that she would, that she had, changed everything.

Joan has never felt safe since that day.

* * *

Joan has never fretted much about her appearance.  Not since her early twenties, anyway.  She slicks her hair back for work, lets it fall where it may otherwise.  She wears a bit of make-up for work, doesn't at any other time.  She wears a dress if her father is in town or she's having an existential crisis, would sooner die than wear one for any other reason.

Why she should fret about it now is positively mental.  Terri doesn't care.  Terri has seen the way Joan looks, the way Joan dresses, the way people react to Joan, and she has invited Joan to come to her new work party, anyway.

But Joan can't get past how different Terri looked all done up in her new work clothes with her shining eyes and her pink lips and her perfume, and when she imagines showing up in a room full of people where the women dress like Terri and the men are accustomed to women who dress like Terri, she feels sick to her stomach, and she spends half an hour sitting on the edge of her bed, dismally contemplating the three dresses she owns.

Mercifully, when time gets away from her, she has not settled upon anything drastic.  A nice sweater and slacks, and her hair is slicked back, but not severely.  She can't stand to look at herself in the mirror.

Terri offered to drive her, and though it was perhaps conspicuously impractical of her to refuse, she is very glad she did.  Her reasoning at the time had been something along the lines of wanting neither to dictate when Terri arrived and left nor to find herself without a means of early egress, as Joan's attitude towards and track record with social events varies significantly from Terri's.  In the present moment, she is glad that no one aside from an indifferent taxi driver is witnessing her in a state of near-panic on the drive.

The place is fancy enough that Joan feels immediately out of place.  She has to be checked off of a list, which also involved being stared up and down by three separate people before she can ascend a large, beautifully crafted staircase.  She can hear the sounds of clinking glasses and stilted conversation drifting down from above her, and the sheer horror that courses through her in response to the sound is very nearly enough to cause her to abandon her commitment to this ghastly affair altogether.

Her knuckles whiten upon the banister, and she remembers Terri's hand upon her forearm, Terri looking up at her with wide eyes and saying, _it would mean a lot to me to have you there_.

She remembers this, and she remembers her mother, a firm grip upon her wrist and the harsh, whispered words, _what the hell's the matter with you?_

In the end she isn't certain which spurs her onward.

Joan doesn't devote much thought to hating her body anymore.  When she was younger, she used to wish desperately that she were shorter, or slimmer, or less broad about the shoulders, or that she had a different sort of face.  Now it's not so much that she's made peace with these things as it is that she found a way of utilising the qualities people seem to dislike most in her: she took an unpopular job where her physicality was an asset.

Here in this room, where all the women and half the men are a head shorter and altogether smaller, she is immediately too much.  She gets the sense that she might wreak utter destruction just by moving, or even by breathing.  She draws her elbows close to her sides and fidgets with her fingers, tries to ignore the way people are starting to catch sight of her, tries not to wish that she were the sort of person who could just blend in.

She hears Terri laughing before she catches sight of her, all the way across the treacherous expanse of the room.  In reality Joan is certain there can't be all that many people—isn't it just Terri's coworkers and their plus-ones?—but as far as Joan can see there are elegantly decorated little tables surrounded by perfectly-coiffed people sporting delicate wine glasses and strained smiles.

 Every step seems to take her nowhere, and the room seems to shift and blur around her as she walks.  She can feel people turning to look at her, can hear them whispering the sort of thing people have always whispered, since long before she knew what it meant.

Eventually, though, by some miracle, Joan makes it into the field of vision of the man who has caused Terri to laugh so uproariously.  He looks up to consider Joan, and Terri follows suit.

The genuine delight upon her features, the way her face well and truly lights up when she sees Joan, brings the world back into focus.

It's probably not her, Joan reasons, to calm her pounding heart.  She was already happy, laughing louder than the whole room combined.  Joan just happens to be standing here now.

As soon as she has assured herself of this, however, Terri is saying something like "oh, good, I'm so glad you're here!"  She extracts herself from the man she's been talking to, who has a prominent moustache and a haughty kind of vexation about his eyes, and reaches out to Joan for a hug.

Joan can feel eyes on her from all sides, can't seem to look away from the moustachio'd man who has moved from watching Terri to glaring at Joan, and she can feel Terri's arms around her shoulders, can feel Terri's presence drawing near to her, and then Terri kisses her on the lips, and the room falls dead silent.

Maybe it does.  Maybe it doesn't.  Joan doesn't know.  She feels like she's been plunged into icy water.  Everything is cold and dark and distant.

When she regains the capacity to comprehend the spoken word, Terri is saying something like "...told you all about Joan?"

Joan turns to gaze upon what seems an endless sea of faces, ranging from strained to outright horrified.

"Ah!" says the moustachio'd man, belatedly.  "So this is the infamous Joan we've heard so much about!"

When she regains the capacity to feel, a horrible, sickening sort of anger surges up from within her.  She did not want to be here.  She does not belong in this place with these people.  She came here for Terri, and Terri _betrayed_ her.

Terri doesn't understand. 

Terri kisses Joan on the lips like it's nothing, like it doesn't matter.  Terri doesn't know what it's like to have the thought flash across your eyes, young and stupid and still terrified, because somehow you know before you know that it's wrong, that it's not allowed, that if anyone else were to find out, they would revile you.

Terri throws away a job and finds another within the week.  Terri charms even her most contentious coworker, doesn't notice the target their friendship has painted on her back until it's too late, doesn't see just how narrowly she dodged a bullet meant for Joan and anyone who dares to do anything other than loudly condemn her in her entirety.

Is her ignorance deliberate, or is she really so stupid that she can't see the way the world falls apart around them?

"Well," says Joan brightly, and she can feel her face twisting into a terrible approximation of a smile.  "What a relief you all know already."  She wraps an arm roughly around Terri's waist, curls her fingers into a fist and pulls Terri sharply against her.  "Something like this could come as quite a shock."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your kind words and your interest! I'm preeeetty sure this will only be one more part? But maybe two--I am notoriously long-winded.

It's strange.  Joan never would have expected to find herself in this particular situation, never could have dreamed it up, yet what follows is not even remotely unpredictable.

Joan tries to signal to Terri that she would like a word in private, but even if Terri understands, no one around them seems to.  The endless sea of faces crowds closer and closer around them, and everyone seems to talk at once.  Joan finds Terri rent rather violently from her vise-grip by the madding crowd, and finds herself in the grasp of a separate circle.

Fortunately, fury has always been a calming influence upon Joan.  Shrouded in the comfort of her lifelong misery, she fields a slew of questions, ranging from awkward and well-meaning to cruel and disturbing, without so much as a twinge of discomfort in her heart.  She doesn't even wince when the man with the moustache asks her 'how that even works.'  When someone mutters that she must like them young, Joan doesn't even stop smiling.

After a time, they leave her in peace, and Joan searches the room for Terri.  Terri has been cornered by a rather different assortment of people, all women with grave faces and brows knitted with concern.  Terri isn't smiling.

Before Joan can approach her, though, the man with the moustache cuts into the little group and offers his hand, and Terri smiles at him as she accepts it.  Joan feels a wave of nausea crash over her, somehow infinitely stronger than her rage, and the mix of the two leaves her feeling dizzy.  She goes over to the bar instead and settles herself on a stool at the far end.

The bartender is a young woman with cropped blonde hair and dark eyes.  She affords Joan a sidelong glance while she retrieves the whiskey.  "I, uh...take it you didn't know.  That she was gonna tell everyone, I mean."

Joan rests her head in her hand.  "No."

"Rotten luck."

Joan sighs heavily.  "Yeah."

"Mate of mine thought she was doing me a favour, telling my oldies."

Joan looks up.  The bartender isn't looking at her.  She's poised over the glass she's prepared for Joan with a kind of deliberate stillness.

"I'm...sorry," says Joan.  "I know what that's like."

The bartender swallows hard, wraps her fingers around the whiskey glass and passes it to Joan.  "Yeah, thought you might."

Joan taps her own fingers on the side of the glass, struggling for something to say.  She's never had a very good frame of reference for responding to genuineness.  A thousand horrible questions from people who ought to be old enough to show some restraint, and it's this conversation that renders her speechless.  She's reminded of something that happened a long time ago, something she remembers vividly, but never really put any meaning to before now.

She was young, probably ten or eleven, and she'd been in a vicious fight with her mother that morning because her father was coming home for a visit and she didn't want to wear a dress.  The whole family had gone out together, and Joan had been in a particularly dour mood until they'd stopped into a little ice cream shop.

There'd been a woman of indeterminate age sitting at the counter drinking a soda and talking to the waitress.  She'd had dark hair cropped very short in a men's cut and she was wearing shapeless work clothes, but the waitress was smiling and laughing with her.

Joan couldn't tear her eyes away from them.  Her father had asked her a question, and she hadn't even heard him until her mother said her name sharply.

When they left, her mother grabbed her roughly by the wrist, and before Joan could protest, her mother was saying to her father, "Did you see the bloody dykes at the counter?  Honestly."

Her father chuckled good-naturedly.  "None of my business, I'm sure!"

"Freaks like that ought to be rounded up and kept off the streets, if you ask me."  She tugged on Joan's arm.  "In a place like that, too?  There are children, Christ!"

Joan blinks the memory away.  She doesn't remember what her father said.  She remembers his voice, the shape of the placating words he spoke, but she doesn't know what he said.  Perhaps she doesn't want to.  She takes a sip of her whiskey.

"I, uh...wish I could tell you it gets easier," she says, after a long moment.

The bartender looks up, and to Joan's surprise, offers her a lopsided smile.  "Aw, that's all right," she says.  "This is probably really weird to say, but..." she averts her eyes again, refocuses her attention on cleaning the bar.  "It's just nice to see that someone like you..." she shrugs, and chuckles awkwardly, "...exists, I guess."

Joan lets out a little huff of something like bewilderment.  She thinks of the woman in the ice cream shop and what that meant to her as a kid, tries to imagine anyone seeing her as a beacon of hope and can't bring herself to reconcile the two.  What is her life but a cautionary tale?

She takes another sip of her drink and shakes her head.  "Yeah," she says quietly.  "I can understand that."

The bartender shoots her another shy smile before someone on the other side of the bar calls her over, and Joan returns her attention to her drink.

* * *

The new girl's name was Julie.  She had red hair that she wore in twin braids and freckles all across her cheeks and her shoulders.  The second day after she'd arrived at the new school she came up and sat down right next to where Joan always sat by herself during recess.  Joan looked up, surprised, maybe glared out of sheer habit, but Julie just started talking like she didn't notice.

Joan was sure it was a fluke.  The others would tell Julie why she ought to avoid Joan, and then Joan would be left to her own devices again, no different than before.

But Julie kept coming over to sit with her.  Julie told her about the school she'd left, about her father and the job that had forced them to move, about how she and her best friend from her old school had sworn to write to one another, but Julie had written twice over the holiday and her friend hadn't written back yet.  Joan didn't speak much—didn't speak at all, if she could help it, not unless Julie asked her something specifically.  She let Julie talk and she listened, and she waited for the sickening premonition in the pit of her stomach to find its root.

It took about a week before someone threw the first proverbial stone.

"Got a new girlfriend, Joanie?"

"Don't be stupid," Julie fired back, long before Joan could think to speak, with the confidence of one who had nothing to hide.

The boy shrugged, with a particular air of condescension about his expression as he walked away, but before Joan even had time to get worked up about that, Julie's hand was on her arm, her voice too close to Joan's ear.  "Don't worry about him."

"I'm not," said Joan, in the tremulous, overly forceful tone of one who was very worried, indeed.

She felt Julie watching her, though she couldn't bring herself to look, and when Julie spoke, it was neither the tone nor the sentiment she expected.  Her words bore the warm lilt of a knowing smile.  "Yeah, sure," she said, and lightly slugged Joan's shoulder.

Like it was nothing.  Like it was a normal thing to do.

* * *

"There you are, Joan!  I've been looking all over!  Leave it to you to find the one shadowy corner in the whole room."

Joan's fury has long since faded into an exhausted sort of irritation.  She tries to think of something to say and comes up woefully lacking.  She traces the rim of her glass with her fingertips.

"Listen, I'm really sorry about before, Joan," Terri continues.  Joan can see her approaching cautiously in her periphery.  "I guess I didn't really think it through too well, did I?  I was just hoping to get Barry off my back, and you're so intimidating, I was sure no one would give you too much trouble.  I hope you're not too upset with me."

Joan inhales as though to speak, but all she comes up with is a long-suffering sigh.  She leaves the glass in peace, but cannot bring herself to look up.

Terri appears in her line of sight, standing just shy of the stool next to hers.  Joan can see her wringing her hands at her waist. 

"Are you?" Terri presses.  "Upset with me?"

Before, there was a lot she wanted to say.  She wanted to tell her about the sad-eyed bartender who must have had a dreadful falling out with her parents, to find any solace in someone like Joan.  She wanted to tell her about the first and last friend Joan ever had all through school, and all the trouble it caused them both.

She wanted to ask if this was all just some game to Terri, or if she was some big joke.  She wanted to tell Terri what it was like for her growing up, demand that Terri imagine nearly twice the summation of her own existence spent in near-exile, when in truth Joan hasn't so much as dared a second glance at a woman more than a handful of times in her life for the sheer shame it still brings her.

Now that the better part of the party-goers has forgotten them for the moment, Joan doesn't much feel like going into any of that.  "It wasn't a good idea," she says at last.  "You might at least have warned me."

"Oh, I know," Terri says as she takes the stool at last.  "I was sure you'd talk me out of it."

Joan looks up.  "Damn right I would have."

Terri's face is contorted with worry, her eyes rendered too wide and too expressive by the make-up.  "But everything turned out all right, didn't it?"

Joan squeezes her eyes closed and runs a hand through her hair.  "Maybe, for now," she says, "but do you have any idea what could have happened?  What could still happen!"

"Oh, come on, Joan, I wouldn't put you in real danger!"  Joan feels rather than sees the way Terri reaches for her arm and then hesitates just shy of touching her.  "These people are all very nice," Terri continues without missing a beat.  "I knew it wouldn't be all bad."

"Terri," says Joan, with as much patience as she can muster, which is admittedly very little, "nice does not always mean accepting."

Terri averts her eyes.  "I'm sure you're right about that," she says after a moment.  "Oh, Joan, I really am sorry if I've worried you.  I thought it would be fun, honestly."

"Fun," Joan echoes flatly.

"Well, I mean, the way you acted at Wentworth, I didn't think you even cared what people said about you.  Actually, it was like you delighted in spiting them.  And Barry is very nice, but he's also awfully sure of himself, and besides all that, well..." Terri looks up, almost shyly.  "Well, I mean, I don't even know if it's true, what people say, but I think anyone you fancied would be awfully lucky to have you."

Joan's formidable irritation melts away into a vague, floundering sort of nothingness.  Even if Joan could think of anything to say in response, she is certain she wouldn't be capable.

"Hey."  Terri's lips quirk into the barest beginnings of a smile, and Joan senses rather than sees the way Terri wants to reach for her.  Something like panic overtakes her, and she is halfway to vehemently discouraging such an action when someone else across the room saves her the trouble.

"Well, everyone!" says a man, holding up his glass to signal a toast.  What he says is immaterial.  He's got his arm slung about the moustachio'd man's shoulders.  Something about the business and how well it's doing under his management, how much everyone likes him, all things Terri parroted to Joan over drinks a week prior.

What matters to Joan is that Terri is momentarily distracted by the toast, swept up in the ceremony of her new workplace, and Joan is granted a moment's respite to gather her thoughts.

She knows she has to say something.  Anything.  A fragment of what she's thinking would be better than saying nothing.  But she doesn't know where to begin, and, supposing she manages that, where to stop.  If she speaks the truth, Terri won't be able to pretend anymore—to pretend that everything is all right or that Joan is some nonthreatening, nonsexual entity and everyone just has the wrong idea about her, and about them.

If she speaks the truth, there will be no more hesitant arm touches, no more thoughtless cheek kisses, no more invitations for drinks or for whatever this is.  If she says the words, then the charade will end, and Joan will be left alone again.

Just like before.

* * *

Near the end of the term, Julie started inviting herself over after school.  She would sling her backpack over one shoulder, brazenly link arms with Joan in front of everyone, and loudly ask how they would spend the afternoon together.

Joan, who had never had any friends, nor any hobbies she'd chosen for herself, stammered a non-response, but Julie was blissfully undeterred.  When they reached Joan's house, Julie produced a deck of well-worn playing cards, and spent the next few weeks teaching Joan every card game she could think of.  In retrospect, she got some of the rules horribly wrong, but the games hardly mattered.

What mattered to Joan was the way Julie made her feel.  Joan felt the joy and the warmth of friendship for the first time in her life, and it changed everything.  She no longer dreaded school, and she no longer dreaded the dullness of the hours in between.  Hard looks and cruel words meant nothing to her in the wake of Julie's kindness.

She had been foolish then.  She had believed her life was turning over a new leaf, that she needn't be miserable and alone any longer, ever again.

Her mother's disapproval had come as a devastating shock.

Joan's mother worked late most days, but it hadn't occurred to Joan to be wary of her presence.  Indeed, she'd expected her mother to be glad that she'd made a friend at last.  When she came home one Friday before Julie had left, she brought a coldness into the house with her that hadn't been there in weeks.

Just like with Joan at the beginning, Julie did not seem to read her mother's expression, did not seem to comprehend the danger that radiated from the tension in her shoulders.  Julie stood and approached with hand outstretched.  "Oh, hi!  You must be—"

Joan's mother regarded Julie's outstretched hand with open contempt.  "Haven't you got homework to do?" she asked coolly.

Julie barely even faltered.  "Well, sure, but it's the weekend, and—"

"And I'm sure your family would like to know where you are."

"I—they—"  Julie turned over her shoulder to look at Joan, but Joan could not help but to cower under her mother's gaze.  "Right.  Well.  I'd better...be going.  See you later, Joan?  Maybe tomorrow?"

"Joan," her mother cut Julie off sharply, "will be otherwise occupied all weekend."

"Sure.  Right.  Well.  Next week at school, then."

And then Julie was gone, and all the colour seemed to leave the room with her.

"Clean that mess up," her mother said of the cards.  "And get on with your schoolwork."

Joan nodded in silence, and wasn't sure why she felt like crying.  The last few weeks had felt like a dream.  Of course the time would come to wake up.

She couldn't even bring herself to feel happy about returning to school on Monday.  She was very nearly overcome by crushing anxiety, the knowledge that she would have to explain what Julie did not seem to understand, the notion that perhaps the way she lived was very different from what everyone else experienced.

But Julie's warmth was unmitigated.  "Hey!  Sorry about Friday, Joan.  I didn't know your mum was so strict.  You could come over to my place instead, if you'd—"

"No, I'd..." Joan cut her off before she'd fully formed a response.  "I'd better not," she finished, but regretted her refusal immediately.

Julie faltered.  Before she could say anything else, though, a group of their classmates drew near, whispering amongst themselves in a manner that evoked a gathering storm.  One of the boys veered roughly into Joan, throwing her off balance and into a row of lockers.

"Rack off!" Julie yelled and reached out as though to steady Joan.  Joan pulled away instinctively.

"Aw, come off it, Jules," said the boy.  Joan was still regaining her bearings, but she could hear the smug grin in his voice.  "The great bloody dyke doesn't even want your help."

"Shut up!" Julie screeched.  "You don't know what you're talking about, so just shut up!"

"What is going on out here?"

Joan straightened up and tried very hard not to rub the shoulder she'd knocked into the handle of a locker.  Most of the boy's co-conspirators had dispersed, and he straightened his shoulders and folded his hands behind his back.  "Nothing, Miss!"

But Julie raised her chin and pointed an accusatory finger at him.  "He pushed Joan into the lockers, Miss."

"I never!  It was an accident!"

The teacher turned hard, accusing eyes upon Joan.  Joan thought of what her mother would say, thought of what her father would say, thought of all the countless times Julie just hadn't seemed to understand the way the world worked, and of how much it frustrated her, and of how much she adored it.

"It was an accident," she agreed quietly.

The teacher reached out and patted Joan's injured shoulder.  "Let's all be more careful in future, then," she said.  Joan didn't even wince.

* * *

"Joan?"

In the present, Terri bumps her shoulder lightly against Joan's and leans in to whisper.  Her nearness and the softness of her voice send a shiver down Joan's spine, unsettling but not unpleasant.  The man toasting the success of the business is still talking.

"Hm."

"I wondered if you'd like to come over to my place for a bit," says Terri.  "We can still make a nice night of it."

 _Oh, no, I don't think so_ , Joan very nearly finds herself saying before Terri has even finished speaking. 

It has been her natural instinct since childhood to refuse such invitations, and it's not something she's ever called into question.  She realizes now that there lingers deep within her some misdirected idea of what could go wrong.  Someone could get the wrong idea, or she could forget to do something she ought to be doing instead, or her mother could come home and be needlessly cruel and drive away the only friend Joan had ever had, or she could find herself forced by the confines of an intimate space to tell the truth at last, and she could find herself in the confines of an intimate space with no easy means of escaping the weight of her own words.

Joan swallows down a strange, old emotion, and she nods.  "Yes," she says at last.  "Thanks, I'd like that."

She feels the warmth of Terri's shoulder pressed against hers once more.  "Great," she whispers back, and Joan can hear the smile in the shape of her words.  "Once this is finished, I'll just powder my nose and then we can leave, all right?"

"Assuming this is _ever_ finished," Joan replies drily as the man making the toast drones on.

Terri does such a poor job of stifling her giggle that several people turn around to glare at them.  Joan feels her lips curl into a self-satisfied smirk.  Perhaps the evening hasn't been such a disaster, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's.....4 parts i sit on a throne of lies.
> 
> I've issued a few warnings already, but this is the chapter where they specifically apply. I think the tone is pretty consistent with the actual show, and I used canon events as references, but none of us likes to see our faves in a bad way without warning.
> 
> And because this got kind of dark, I made an extra effort to make it up to you at the end. And also to wait until I was almost done w the next chapter to post this one. :-)

"Can I ask you something?" said Julie one day, with uncharacteristic hesitancy.  Her eyes were focused on the card house they were attempting to construct, their newest project since they had exhausted their limited knowledge of card games.

"Sure," said Joan, though even then she knew that good things seldom lay on the other side of such a question.

Julie fixed two cards into a triangle, balanced them carefully with a grim set to her brow.  "Why don't you...say anything?  About the way everyone treats you?"

Joan averted her gaze, fiddled with the seven of hearts she held between her hands.  "What good would it do?  Anyway, the teachers don't like me any better."  She didn't have the words for the way she understood her place in the world then.  Now she would tell Julie that the teachers must surely have known without wanting to know.

Julie let out a huff of frustration, and what little progress they'd made tumbled to the ground.  She did finally convince Joan to come over to her house, on days when she could be reasonably certain of her mother's work schedule, and though the atmosphere was generally far more pleasant, to say that the arrangement felt tenuous would be an understatement.

"I just don't understand it!" said Julie.  She picked up one of the cards and tossed it aimlessly atop the ruins.  "Did you do something I don't know about?"

Joan scoffed.  "You've heard what they call me."

A heavy and telling silence followed.  Joan traced the shape of a heart with her thumb.

"Well..." Julie began, uncertainly.  "So what?  It doesn't matter.  They've still got no right to treat you that way."

She cleared away the pile of fallen cards and took up two to start anew.

"Aren't you going to ask if it's true or not?" Joan dared.  She felt her heartbeat in her throat.

Julie hesitated, but only for an instant.  "It doesn't matter," she repeated.

Joan didn't have the words for how she felt that day.  She knew she ought to be grateful, or at the very least relieved.  Her only friend in the world had heard and understood the rumours about her and she didn't care.  She didn't want to stop being Joan's friend.  She didn't stop defending Joan, or looking out for her, or linking arms with her when they walked together.

Still, her insistence that it didn't matter, that it made no difference, stung.  Because of course Joan had thought it, briefly, treacherously, a flash across her eyes she could not unsee even as she insisted it wasn't like that.  Julie was just a friend, a close friend, her only friend, and surely just because Joan relished the unfamiliar warmth of closeness, of a gentle and unhesitating touch, and just because Joan had wondered what it would be like to kiss Julie, had been momentarily beset by a thought she could not control and did not abide, that did not mean that everyone was right about her, that she deserved everything she got.

Maybe it made no difference to Julie, maybe Julie would have done the same for anyone.  But to Joan, who she was and how she was perceived had shaped the course of her entire existence. 

Plainly, it mattered to Joan.

This particular memory stands out to Joan as she searches for the right words to say to Terri.  She knows she has to say something, even wants to, because it does matter, and Terri ought to know that.  Terri isn't stupid.  She is young, and headstrong, and reactionary, and these are just as much her merits as her flaws, but she isn't stupid, and she is willing to listen.

"Well, you've got guts," says a man's voice, followed by a hand slammed just a little too hard on the bar next to where she is sitting.  "I'll give you that."

Joan looks up with the utmost derision upon her features.  "Have we met?" she wonders coolly.

"Not directly," says the stranger with a mirthless smile.  "But you made quite an impression."

Joan narrows her eyes.  "Have you got something to say to me?" she asks him.  "Or do you enjoy wasting my time?"

"On the contrary," says the man lightly.  "Not a waste of time at all.  Call it...a bit of friendly advice."

Joan affords him a scoff and turns her attention to some imagined spot on the far wall.  "Get on with it."

The man leans in, too close, with breath that smells of liquor.  It is only pride that keeps Joan from flinching away.  "Leave the girl alone," he says.

Joan clenches her hand into a fist at her side, obscured from his view.  "That's hardly for you to decide, now, is it?" she says as airily as she can manage.

She's expecting more—there's always more—but the man simply straightens up and says, with affected levity, "Suit yourself.  Don't say I didn't warn you."

Joan tosses her head over one shoulder as the man turns to leave.  "I don't scare easily," she tells him.

The man stops and turns back with a strange sort of slowness.  He considers her with a condescending chuckle that boils her blood, and she's got half a mind to break his nose right here.  But she lets him go, closes her eyes and inhales deeply, and she reminds herself that she is waiting to leave. 

She is waiting to leave with Terri, because Terri said they could still make a nice night of it.  Terri invited her here as her plus one because she thought it would be fun, misguided as that might be.  Terri invited her here and kissed her on the lips in front of everyone, and no one and nothing can take that away from her.

Joan takes another long and rather forceful breath, and as she leaves, she asks the bartender to tell Terri she'll be waiting outside.

* * *

Terri knows she needs to say something.  Moments primed for speaking her mind have come and gone countless times already, only...she just doesn't know what to say.  And she was sure Joan would be the sort to take the lead if she were even interested, if the rumours were even true.

And does she even want the rumours to be true?

If it's true, then this is real, not just some elaborate game she's been playing with herself, and Terri will have to face what that means.

She isn't sure she knows how to do that.

It's been awhile since Terri has had cause to fret over her appearance, and she finds that it's wearing on her.  In truth, she liked the uniforms and the easy dress code regulations for female officers at Wentworth.  Working in an environment where she is consistently expected to look her best...in a very particular way she lacks the words to describe...is demoralizing, to say the least.

It's a curious sort of anxiety that compels Terri to stall by playing at fixing her make-up in the bathroom mirror.  Logically she doubts Joan cares how she looks, and indeed, if she were going home alone, or with anyone who wasn't Joan, she would scrub off the make-up and locate her pyjama pants at the earliest opportunity.

Terri pauses, powder brush just shy of her nose.  Why is she even making such a fuss over this?  She doesn't even know if it's true, what everyone says about Joan, and she's sure if Joan were even interested, she would be the sort to take the lead, and Joan is one of the only real friends Terri has ever had, someone who doesn't shy away from the hard truths of the world, and who doesn't dampen difficult conversations with placating niceties, and here is Terri, trying very hard to make an absolute fool of herself.

She powders her nose, anyway, and wets her hands, both to set the powder and to slap some sense into herself, and then she nods firmly to her reflection, an answer to a question she doesn't know how to ask.

Not ten paces out of the ladies' room, she very nearly runs straight into Barry.

"Terri!" he cries, with arms spread wide, blocking her path.  "Just the lady I wanted to see."

"Oh!" says Terri, belatedly.  "Congratulations, Barry," she tries, floundering.  "It's been a lovely evening."

"Been?  Why, it's just beginning!" says Barry.  There's an unsteadiness about him that unnerves Terri.  Of course she knows he's just been drinking a bit too much, but the fact remains that her path is blocked, and that it has been repeatedly suggested to her that Barry's interest in her might be more than professional.

"Come out with us!" Barry continues jovially.  "We're going dancing, and I'll bet you are a marvelous dancer."

Terri feels an overwhelming rush of gratitude for having dragged Joan here with her—indeed, this is exactly the reason.  "Oh, that's...very kind of you, Barry, thanks, maybe another time."

"Oh, come on, Terri."  Terri notices the way Barry leans a hand against the wall, and it sets off a vague sort of warning bell in the back of her mind.  She does her best to ignore the feeling.  He's a little drunk, and unsteady.  That's all.  He is also still talking.  "—not tonight?  You don't really expect me to believe you're going home with that—"

"As a matter of fact, I am, not that it's any of your business," Terri says, perhaps a bit sharply.  It occurs to her that it's not the wisest thing to say to her boss, but her nerves have rendered her reactionary.  "Thank you again, Barry, but now I really must be—"

"Terri," he repeats, lower, and darker.  "Look, I..." he chuckles, strangely, to himself.  "I certainly don't understand it."

Terri dares to feel hopeful.

"But it happens," Barry continues.  "I'm sure this Joan person can be very...persuasive.  You just didn't know what you were getting yourself into, and now you're in over your head."

Suddenly all the air seems to leave the room.  Terri is backing away.  Terri is backed into a corner.  Terri is holding her hands out to shield herself, to steady herself.  "Listen, Barry..."

"I can help you, Terri," he says.  "I can save you."

Terri's back hits the far wall.  "Stop it, Barry, you're frightening me."

Barry wavers, just slightly, with a little huff that betrays the liquor on his breath, and he leans his hands against the wall on either side of her.  "There's nothing to be frightened of," he says, with an attempt at the same lilting joviality he employed first.  "It happens, Terri.  It wasn't your fault.  There's no need to keep pretending."

"Barry, stop," Terri tries again, but her voice has fled her.  It's little more than a whisper.

Barry leans in, and darkness surrounds her.  Barry eclipses all the colour and light from the room behind him.  He's still talking, she thinks, but the words are slurred, incomprehensible, and Terri's mind is racing.  She's thinking of everything that led her to this moment, wondering if she could have avoided this somehow, wondering if this is all her fault, wondering if she should just give in and stop fighting the inevitable.

"Mr. Lockwood?  Oh..."

Time stands still.  The light returns but Terri's vision seems somehow blurred.

"Hm.  What?"  Barry turns away, and Terri can breathe again.

"Sorry to disturb you, sir," says a woman's voice.  "Someone was asking for you and I—"

"Right, of course!  Won't be a moment!" Barry recovers quickly, back to his usual effusive self.  He turns over his shoulder.  "Think about it, Terri," he whispers, with the kind of mischievous, conspiratorial tone that would be charming if not for the events that preceded it.

And then he is gone, and Terri's vision clears to reveal the bartender with the cropped blonde hair, a girl who looks too young for her job, standing with shoulders rounded awkwardly and gaze fixed somewhere to the side.

"Thanks," Terri manages.

"Sure," says the bartender.  "Your, uh...friend went outside awhile back, and I...well."

Terri struggles to steady her breathing, closes her eyes and squares her shoulders.  "I owe you," she says.  "More than one."

When she opens her eyes again, the bartender is smiling.  "Aw, that's all right," she says, and before Terri can think to say anything more, she turns and leaves.

Terri is stricken quite suddenly by a dizzying sensation of premonition.  She half-remembers something she heard herself say awhile earlier, a promise she made, that she would never have put Joan into any real danger, and the uneasiness she had chalked up to Joan feeling out of place at the party.

She collects her jacket and hurries downstairs.

* * *

 _I know some of the things you must have heard about me_ , Joan will begin.  _I am what I am, and I'm not going to make any excuses for it._

Joan takes a drag on her cigarette.  Perhaps she shouldn't say that.  Too...forceful.

_I am what I am, and it hasn't always been easy, but I don't have any regrets._

Joan scoffs at herself, almost chokes.  Hasn't she?

 _You don't need to be frightened of me_.  She'll say that.  That's important.  Then maybe—

Joan got into her first fight when she was twelve years old.  She calls it a fight even though it was three or four to one and she didn't fight back.  She's seen more than her fair share of conflict, some she courted, and a lot she didn't.  She's learned it hardly matters.  What matters is that she knows the way footsteps sound when they are deliberate, and she can make out three sets.

"Only three?" she remarks coolly.

The men don't cover their faces.  They scarcely even have the cover of darkness.  There's no uncertainty in their eyes, no shame tucked away at the edges of their features.  Little more than the overgrown schoolchildren who bashed her thirty years prior.

Joan makes a show of taking another drag on her cigarette before she tosses it to the ground and stamps it out.  She feels only distantly frightened, a shadow of the emotion buried deep under years of deflection.  More than anything, she feels a cold, sinking hopelessness cascading over her like a sheet.  So much for the surprisingly bearable party.  So much for making a nice night of it.  So much for making no apologies for who she is, for telling the truth at long last and holding her head high, come what may.

She turns to face the three men approaching her and holds her arms out at her sides.  "Well?"

"Can't say I didn't warn you," says another man's voice, behind them.  "Then again..." he comes into view, "maybe you don't care.  Maybe you know it's what you deserve."

Joan got into her first fight when she was twelve years old, and she has been no stranger to conflict since then.  Indeed, she thinks vaguely, there might have been a time when she could have won this fight.  She doubts these men are anything special.  They aren't serial bashers or combat-trained, and they don't fancy themselves criminals.  In their eyes, she is certain, they are doing the world a tremendous service.

Joan takes down the first one who jumps her.  Fist to the solar plexus and knee to the groin.  She is well past the days of not fighting back.  But there are four of them altogether, although the talker doesn't want to get his hands dirty, and there is nowhere to run, no one to threaten, no angle to play.

They slam her head against the concrete building and the streetlamps go blurry.  She kicks aimlessly until they manage to pin her legs.  Then she yells until the wind is knocked out of her, and then she is suddenly free, no longer pinned down but for the relentless force of gravity.

"Stop!  What's the matter with you! Stop it!"

_What's the matter with you, what's the matter with you, what's the matter, doesn't matter—_

Joan's hands find the concrete wall behind her, and she slides down onto the ground.  Two of the men bolt.  Joan can feel rather than hear their footfalls against the pavement.  The last looms over her, eclipses the streetlamp behind him, and spits in her face before he walks away.

"No matter," says the talker, but his back is turned, and Joan is dizzy and disoriented.  "Point's been made, sweetheart.  Something to think about." 

"You pig!  You foul, disgusting pig!" Terri is shrieking, but the man is laughing and he is walking away, and then he is gone, and only the distinctive outline of Terri remains, pretty curls and quivering shoulders silhouetted by lamplight.

"Oh, Joan..."

"I'm fine," Joan tries to snap, but it comes out much feebler than she'd like.  Truthfully she can't tell whether she's fine or not—she feels apart from herself, caught between the present and the past.

Terri descends on her all at once, and Terri's presence is warm and effusive and a bit too much to handle at this particular moment, but Joan would sooner suffer it than cede the feeling of Terri's hands on her arms, soft, gentle, touching and not grabbing.  "We've got to get you to hospital—" Terri begins.

"No!" The horror of the notion very nearly sends Joan staggering to her feet.  She pushes vaguely, warring with her desire for Terri to stay and the all-encompassing feeling of walls closing in around her.

Fortunately, Terri has none of it, and pushes gently back.  "All right, Joan, take it easy," she says.  "I'll take you to my place if you still want to come round.  I've got a first aid kit there, and we can phone the police—"

Joan scoffs. "And tell them what?  The police have stood idly by for far more than a common bashing.  Anyway, I'm perfectly _fine_."

Terri seems like she's going to protest again, but instead she sighs and shakes her head.  "All right, fine," she says, with more fondness than Joan expected, and she reaches up and brushes Joan's hair away from her face.

Joan feels herself release tension she hadn't realized she'd been holding.  She manages to look at Terri properly, and she offers a thin approximation of a smile.  "I'm fine, really," she says, as gently as she knows how.  "It'll take more than a mob of jilted nobodies to put me out of action."

Terri's eyes scan Joan's face uncertainly, and her lips twitch into a small smile that feels familiar, like something she's done a dozen times before.  It seems crazy, or at the very least ill-founded that Joan's heart should flutter, but as soon as the moment has come, it is gone, and Terri's face contorts in a sudden onslaught of anguish.

"This is all my fault," she whispers.  "Oh, god...it is, isn't it?  It's all my fault!"

"It's not your fault, Terri."

Terri pulls away to cover her mouth as a horrible sob escapes her.  "It is!" she cries.  "I did this!  You warned me and I—oh, god!"

"Terri—"

Terri falls away from where she's been kneeling over Joan and sits upon the pavement next to her.  Her hands don't do much to muffle her crying.  "I didn't realize, Joan!" she manages after a time.  "You tried to tell me, but I...oh god!"

"Terri, just—"  _Just calm down_ , she almost snaps, but stops herself.  It's touching, and irritating, to warrant such concern, and Joan is trying very hard to maintain a grasp upon her own temper.  Terri is apologizing, and Joan can understand, but it's been a long night, and perhaps Terri isn't entirely to blame.  Joan should have said something earlier.

"I can understand, Terri," she says at last, with more difficulty than she'd like.  "Not wanting to see the truth.  I should have told you the truth already, but I was..." she sighs, squeezes her eyes closed for another instant.  "You've been a good friend to me, Terri.  I haven't had many of those, ever.  I was afraid of losing that."

Terri's weeping dulls to the occasional sniffle, and she moves closer so that their shoulders are touching.  The warmth is entirely unexpected, but surprisingly soothing.  "But you must have known that wouldn't—"

"Terri," Joan snaps without meaning to, and she does her best to soften her tone in the words that follow.  "Surely this evening has shown you what I've been trying to tell you?  The kindest people I've ever known have still judged me for what I am, for what I can't help!  And you know, sometimes—"

Words catch in Joan's throat, and she blinks away tears she hadn't felt forming.  She remembers with aching clarity the look on Julie's face when she put together what had happened and why, remembers the tension in her shoulders and the trembling of her lips whenever their eyes met after that horrible stretch of days, and though the pain of her return to utter solitude proved almost too dreadful to bear, she never once hated Julie for turning away from her.

She had always expected it.

"Sometimes I don't blame them," says Joan in the present, quietly.  "I mean, who would want—what kind of—  I'm not worth—"

"Joan," Terri says, with enough certainty that Joan ceases her floundering attempts at speech.  "You don't deserve this.  You don't deserve...any of this.  You must know that."

Joan turns to look at Terri in the dim light from the streetlamps.  _Don't I?_ she almost asks aloud, but stays her own tongue.

Terri has stopped crying, and that matters more to Joan than pressing some ancient existential question that no one can answer for her, anyway.  She offers Terri the faintest shadow of a smile and reaches out to brush away her tears.

Terri catches Joan's hand and leans into her touch.  There's a troubled set to her brow, but there's also a smile upon her lips.  She inhales as though to speak, looks up to meet Joan's eyes, and hesitates.

"We should—that is..." Terri falters, but then, somewhat affectedly, regains her usual confidence.  She squeezes Joan's hand and then braces herself against the building to pull herself to her feet.  "Come on," she says, offering her hand to Joan, "let's get you off the streets."

* * *

_What the hell's the matter with you?_

A small group of schoolchildren had beaten Joan up on a Thursday.  She had returned to school on a Friday, sporting a busted lip and a bruised eye, and several other bruises which hadn't been their doing.  A couple of teachers had made a very unconvincing show of concern, and had told her as they always did that she ought to be more careful.

It didn't matter to Joan.  What mattered was that her assailants saw her, shoulders squared and head held high, unafraid.

Joan sat by herself to the side of the building at recess, with a straight back and hands folded neatly in her lap, watching how the others reacted to her—the ones who tried not to look, the ones who tried to pretend they weren't looking, and the ones who stared openly.

She watched Julie look around the yard, watched her scrunch up her face and retort to something one of the boys said to her (Joan couldn't quite hear, but she was almost certain the word "girlfriend" was sneered), and then watched her turn to see Joan.  She saw horror flash across Julie's face, then, slowly, a kind of pained resignation.  Julie looked at Joan for a long moment, then down at her shoes, and then she turned her back and walked away.

Joan considered that perhaps, contrary to what Julie had said only a few days prior, what people thought of her mattered a great deal.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone please teach me to stop saying the next update should be done soon because I swear it could be 98% complete and I would still somehow manage to spontaneously forget all human language for three months.
> 
> But what actually happened is I underestimated how seldom I'm capable of writing even the three or so paragraphs of smut it took to finish the chapter lol so ANYWAY thanks for sticking with me and I hope you enjoy the conclusion of this piece!

Once Terri's attention is diverted to the road ahead of them, Joan takes a moment to test her injuries.  She's rather glad her sweater escaped any noticeable damage, but suspects her slacks might be scuffed beyond salvaging.  The bump on the head is her only real concern—she's had a few too many of those for comfort—but the rest, she knows from hard experience, will result in little more than a few days of soreness. 

The whole thing was a power play, a warning—indeed, all the more so because if the damage had been more serious, her assailants might have stood a better chance of facing some kind of consequences.

Still, Joan has no intention of attending another such gathering, and she hopes Terri has learned her lesson, as well.  Let them think they've won.  It's over now, and Joan is here with Terri.

"Can I ask you something, Joan?" Terri wonders hesitantly, after a considerable time spent in silence.

"Sure."

There's another silence before Terri continues.  "I know you must think I'm terribly stupid now, but...before tonight?"

Joan turns to look at her, uncomprehending.  Terri stares straight ahead, hands clutching the steering wheel, shoulders stiff.

"I mean, could you ever have...?" Terri shakes her head.  "Oh, god, I'm going about this all wrong, aren't I?"

Joan doesn't know what to say.

"Maybe I should just shut up, I mean, I've already made such a mess of this whole evening, and anyway, we're here, so just...I'll..."

Terri is still talking, rambling, while she parks the car, and none of it makes any sense.  She is nervous, but the reason for her nerves seems vague and difficult to discern.  Joan thinks she can guess the end of the question Terri meant to ask, but the idea of it is so absurd that she doubts her own intuition.

Of course Joan has thought it, briefly and treacherously, and all the more painfully for how she has tried to deny it.  She's even been so foolish as to entertain the notion that Terri might not be utterly opposed to the idea.  She wouldn't be the first effusive young woman whose adventurous streak and curiosity had drawn her to Joan for a short while.  Joan is accustomed to being seen as an anomaly, and lust and loathing can be rather similar in that regard.

But Joan had quickly realized that Terri was different, that while Joan and Terri might not fully understand one another, they share a strange connection that transcends the usual markers of friendship.  Each has qualities the other admires, and the tension and frustration and misunderstanding between them are not even in the same league as those other affairs.

Terri has trailed off mid-sentence, and Joan still has no idea what she ought to say.  Time and again she has reminded herself that saying anything at all would be better than saying nothing, and yet it seems she always finds herself stuck in the same place, at a loss for how to begin.

She follows Terri up the stairs and into her flat in silence, though they are spared from utter stillness by the muted chatter and music from the other apartments they pass on the way.  Terri's door opens up into a tiny kitchen with a dim yellowish light, but Joan finds the small space more charming than stifling.

"Are you quite sure you're all right?" Terri asks without looking at her.  She crosses the room and retrieves a first aid kit from a cabinet.

"Yes, fine," says Joan dismissively.

"At least let me clean up that scratch on your forehead," Terri says, and before Joan can protest, Terri turns around with cotton ball in hand, unexpectedly close in the small space.  She startles slightly and looks up at Joan with wide, shining eyes.

Joan feels her own breath hitch, belatedly remembers that Terri has not quite asked her a question, and nods her assent.

Again Terri's lips quirk into that small, soft smile Joan is sure she recognizes from somewhere else, and she takes Joan's arm with her free hand and directs her to sit down at the little kitchen table.  She leans over Joan and dabs at a scratch Joan had scarcely noticed just over her right eye, and Joan struggles to find something to do with her eyes and her hands and her feet.

"It doesn't sting, does it?" Terri asks her, softly, but too close.

Joan shakes her head.  She is trying to focus her attention on the kitchen counter behind Terri, on a little chip in the floor tiling, on anything but Terri's presence closing in all around her.

"Joan?"

Joan looks up, and her breath catches again, audibly.

Terri's face is very close, enough to partially obscure the dim light above them.  She is studying Joan's face with tiny, fleeting glances, from the scar on her forehead to her eyes to her lips and back.  She sets the cotton ball down on the table with a strange, affected slowness, and seems to watch the progression of her own hand as she does so, as though it doesn't quite belong to her.  She doesn't exactly return her attention to Joan; rather, she watches her own hands as she draws them into herself, and then reaches for Joan's face with the tips of her fingers. 

Joan takes in a ragged breath when Terri touches her, and her eyes fall closed of their own accord, but she cannot bear to look away for long.  Terri takes Joan's face in her hands, gaze focused somewhere around the collar of her shirt, and Joan realizes suddenly that she can feel Terri's hands shaking.  She reaches up and places one of her own hands over Terri's.

Terri meets her eyes at last.

"I, uh..." she stammers, wets her lips with her tongue, and averts her eyes again as she pulls away.  "I'm...sorry, again, about tonight, I—"

Joan doesn't quite let go of her hand, and she follows Terri to her feet.  "It's all right, Terri," she tries.  "In fact, I'm..." she feels a nervous sort of laughter escape her lips, and squeezes Terri's hand without meaning to.  "I'm sure any man would've been overjoyed to learn he was your surprise date for the evening."

Terri turns back around sharply, suddenly, yet again too close in the limited space of the kitchen, but there is a new sort of determination in her eyes.  "What about you?"

"Well, I..." Joan hears herself speaking as though from far away.  She tries to ignore the creeping cold of nerves, and digs the fingers of her free hand into her leg to steady herself.  "As...far as first kisses go," she hears herself saying, "it was a bit...rushed."

Suddenly Joan recognizes the small, soft smile that plays at the corners of Terri's lips.  It's the same look Terri gave her that first day she'd been transferred into H-block, when she'd asked Joan to cover for her in reception.

 _Our little secret_ , Joan had said, because Joan had only just met Terri, and Terri had not yet learned to treat Joan like the scum of the earth.  And then Terri had smiled at her, and Joan's mind had gone momentarily, blissfully, stupidly blank.

"And..." Terri begins, slowly, "you would have done it differently?"

Joan feels herself beginning to smile, too.  "Of course," she says, almost lightly.  If they were in a different sort of space, she might have taken a leisurely approach, emboldened by a certainty she is so rarely granted in such matters, but as it stands, Terri's back is already up against the kitchen counter.

"Joan..." Terri breathes, and her free hand finds Joan's waist, instead, holding the fabric of Joan's sweater delicately between her fingertips.

Joan's fingertips trace Terri's hairline, from temples to ears to the base of her neck, and Joan watches carefully as Terri's lips part and her eyelids grow heavy.  Truthfully this still seems like it ought to be a trap, like someone is waiting around the corner to punch her in the stomach, or like Terri will suddenly break into cruel laughter, and Joan will be left to wonder how she could have been so stupid, to think anyone could ever—

She threads her fingers through Terri's hair, holds Terri's face in her hands, and leans in, slowly, steadfastly ignoring the terror she feels.

Kissing Terri feels like a rush of both nerves and relief, all mixed up together, and the combination is almost dizzying.  Terri's grip on Joan's waist tightens, and the little noise she makes sends a thrill coursing through Joan like nothing she's felt before.  She cradles Terri's head in her hands and deepens the kiss almost without thinking, without hesitating, and when Terri wraps her arms about Joan's waist to pull her closer, she is certain she will burst at the seams from the sheer vastness of how she feels.

But there is shame buried deep within her heart, too much a part of her to ignore for very long, and even as she feels surges of lust, of adoration, of warmth, of hope, so, too, does she feel a rush of embarrassment, that she could have forgotten herself and her place in the world so thoroughly.

She pulls away, acutely aware of her own ragged breathing, and forces herself to release her grip upon Terri's hair and shoulder.  She cannot bring herself to open her eyes just yet, cannot bear to guess what she might see upon Terri's features.  "I'm sorry," she breathes.  "I should have...I hope I didn't..."  She takes a step back, and though Terri allows it, she does not let go of Joan's waist.

Joan opens her eyes.  "I hope I didn't...pressure you," she finishes at last.  "I'll leave right now, if you like, and I'll never—"

"Joan," Terri stops her with hands on her shoulders and a troubled look about her eyes.  "I don't want you to go."

"You don't?" Joan echoes stupidly.

Terri shakes her head, smiles hesitantly.  "No."

"But Terri," Joan shakes her own head in response, struggles to maintain control of herself, "surely you see this isn't a good idea!  The best thing I could do is—"

The words catch in her throat, and she averts her eyes abruptly to hide tears she hadn't felt forming.  The best thing she can do is to leave Terri alone.  It's been proven to her time and time again that her affection can only bring about destruction, disillusionment, even death.  And was any of it worth the trouble?

"Don't you like me, Joan?" Terri asks her quietly.

Joan looks up, alarmed enough to forget that she meant to hide her tears.  "It isn't that," she says.  "It isn't that at all.  Don't you see what can happen?  I mean, you already left Wentworth because of me, and things at your new job are bound to be harder after tonight, and if anything were to happen to you, I'd—"

"And what if it was the other way around, Joan?" Terri cuts her off, with a certainty that surprises her.  "What if you were the one who had it easy with people, and I was the one no one seemed to like?  Would you shut me out?  Would you turn your back on me because of...what?  Because of what other people might think?"

Joan is reminded of an old memory, of a girl who wore her red hair in twin braids, assessing Joan's black eye and split lip and turning away from their friendship once and for all.  Joan sees a dozen faces flash across her memory, a dozen or more people who took one look at one of her life's many tragedies and decided she wasn't worth the trouble.  She has never blamed them, of course, and she has often understood them.  Sometimes she has wondered what her life might be like if she could force herself to blend in, and sometimes she has stayed her tongue when she knows very well she ought to have spoken what was in her heart.

It hasn't been easy, being who and what she is.  But she finds in this moment that she doesn't have any regrets.  Moments like these are entirely worth the trouble.

"Of course not," says Joan.

"Then..." Terri reaches up to smooth Joan's hair "...perhaps we could worry about all that...later?"

Joan's hands, which have been hanging listlessly in midair for some time now, find hesitant purchase at Terri's waist.  "Look, are you sure about this, Terri?"

Terri dabs gently at the tears threatening to fall from Joan's eyes and when she's finished, she holds Joan's face between her hands.  "I'm sure about you, Joan."

Joan feels the words like they've struck her, and a little "huh" escapes her.

Terri's hands fall to Joan's shoulders, and she averts her gaze with a little smile, shy but not uncomfortable.  "But I've...never done this before," she says, with a breathless little laugh.  "Funny, isn't it?"  She looks up with wide eyes, somehow always shining with a kind of life Joan scarcely understands.  "I think I'm very good at pretending I know what I'm doing, but I—"

She trails off suddenly, lips still parted, and takes in a shuddering breath.

"You don't need to be frightened of me, Terri," Joan tries.

"Oh, I know that, Joan, it's just that..." Terri shakes her head, faltering, searching for words the way Joan has so often found herself doing over the past few weeks.  "All this time, I was afraid I was making a fool of myself, wanting something...just because of what someone said about you, something that might not even be true, and what would it have said about me if it wasn't, you know?  But now it's—"

She closes her eyes and exhales raggedly, and she wraps her arms a bit more tightly around Joan's shoulders.  If not for that, Joan would have suspected she ought to pull away.

When Terri's eyes flutter open, Joan's heart surges.

"I've wanted you for so long, Joan," Terri breathes, so close Joan can feel the words against her own lips.  "I just...don't want to disappoint you."

Joan feels breathless laughter bubbling up from somewhere in her chest, unexpected and overwhelming.  "I don't think that's possible," she says before she closes the distance between them once more.

* * *

The hardest thing to do with strong memories is to let go of them.

Julie has spent the day going through a box of her old things her mother brought by earlier in the week.  She managed to part with or to repurpose most of the box's contents, but there is an old deck of playing cards staring her down from her dining room table as she struggles to continue about her day.

The last time she saw Joan Ferguson must have been nearly thirty years ago on the nose, when they were in year ten or so.  They had steadfastly avoided one another since a group of kids had bashed Joan up a few years prior to that, and Julie had been too afraid to do anything to support her.  Stumbling across her again had come as a shock to Julie's system.

She'd been preoccupied, listening to one of her friends talk, when she'd heard a girl's voice yell something vulgar, followed by a familiar, muted laugh.  She'd turned over her shoulder to see Joan leaning against the side of the building next to a girl she didn't recognize, both of them smoking in the cover of the late afternoon shadow.

Julie couldn't help but to think that Joan had grown into her looks quite well.  She didn't have the words for it then, because it wasn't a conventional sort of attractiveness, and Julie remained convinced that she had befriended Joan out of the kindness of her heart, and not because she saw anything in Joan that she could understand.  But Joan had strong features, and she remained tall and broad-shouldered even after the boys had finally hit their growth spurts, and it wasn't so much these things as it was the way she carried them.

Joan didn't quite look happy, but there was a subtle smirk about her features until she met Julie's gaze, and all the colour seemed to drain from her face.

Julie had half a mind to say something.  Knew she should.  Anything would be better than nothing, than the way she left things, just turning tail and running because she had suddenly understood what Joan faced every day and what Julie didn't have to.

But the girl standing with Joan wrapped an arm about Joan's shoulders that seemed to startle her, and made an obscene gesture in Julie's direction.  Julie averted her eyes, startled, and returned her attention to her previous conversation without looking back.

She hated how that strange interaction had haunted her.  It took everything she had not to press the matter, to find out who the girl was and whether she and Joan were together, and what that might entail, and whether Joan ever missed Julie, and whether...

In the present, Julie traces the edge of the top card fondly, and releases the old melancholy of the memory with a sigh.  She picks up the deck and deals herself a game of solitaire.

 _Wherever you are, Joan_ , she thinks, _I hope you've found some happiness._

* * *

Joan realizes suddenly that she had in the back of her mind a vague notion of how this would go.  She never expects much from the women who take to her out of curiosity.  Not that she minds at the time, but there is generally a strange stillness to those encounters.  Sometimes Joan can tell it's just nerves, or emotional processing, but often it seems more likely a given that Joan, as the obvious, undeniable lesbian in the situation, ought to take the lead quite thoroughly, and shouldn't she just be so lucky to be permitted to touch a woman at all?

So, when Terri threads her fingers through Joan's hair and grips it so tightly she gasps, when Terri arches her body up against Joan like she can't get close enough, when Joan becomes acutely aware of Terri's thigh between her legs and it is everything she can do not to respond to it, and when instead Terri moves against her, to say that Joan is pleased to be proven wrong would be a rather magnificent understatement.

When she is relieved of her sweater, Joan is reminded rather uncomfortably of the last time she was undressed by the hands of another, and the memory gives her pause.

In one of countless attempts by disgruntled prisoners to ruin Joan's excellent service record, she was set up by a fellow officer and accosted—ironically, to be accused of assault.  Though she did her level best to play off the incident as little more than an irritating inconvenience, it hurt her more deeply than she cares to admit.  As confident as she is in most matters, there is something particularly harrowing about the prospect of her own nakedness in the eyes of people who view her as some sort of inhuman monster.

Joan has never fretted much about her appearance, but she is hardly immune to the cruel observations made about her.

"Are you all right, Joan?" Terri asks her, hands on her shoulders and thumbs hooked beneath the straps of her bra.

Joan refocuses her attention on the present moment, on the feeling of the bare skin of Terri's waist beneath her hands, on the way the little lamp on Terri's bedside table casts artful shadows across the subtle rise of her breasts.  "Fine," she says, "sorry.  I've been a bit...caught up...in old memories tonight."

Terri wraps her arms about Joan's shoulders and draws herself closer, and Joan relishes the warmth of Terri's body pressed against hers.  "It's happened before?" Terri guesses.

Joan nods, focuses her attention on the curve of Terri's shoulder in the lamplight.

Terri ducks her head to catch Joan's eye.  "I'm sorry," she says.

"It isn't your fault," Joan tells her.  She is relieved to find that the words come far easier than they did earlier.

Terri inclines her head and narrows her eyes with a sort of playful studiousness.  "Well," she says, and leans in to kiss Joan, "it isn't yours, either."

Joan returns her kiss and pushes the unpleasant memories rather forcefully from the forefront of her consciousness.  Encouraged by Terri's boldness, she undoes the clasp at the back of Terri's bra and pushes her gently back onto the bed behind her before ducking her own head to appreciate the newly-exposed skin with her tongue. 

Terri gasps and whispers her name, and she grasps handfuls of Joan's hair to hold her close as Joan takes Terri's nipple gently between her teeth.  Terri cries out, and as much as it excites, it also startles.

"Haven't you got a flatmate?" Joan hopes she asks.  The words might be unintelligible.

Terri is utterly unconcerned.  "Gone for the weekend," she says as she reaches behind Joan for the clasp on her own bra, and again Joan is overcome by the sense that there ought to be a catch, or a horrible twist, that she cannot possible just have this moment to enjoy without fear.

Fortunately, when Terri mimics Joan's actions, trails kisses from her sternum along the curve of her breast and takes Joan's nipple between her teeth in kind, the dismal turn of Joan's thoughts becomes decidedly easier to ignore.  Joan bows her head as though defeated, cradles Terri's head in her hands, and does her best to give in.

When she can't bear the sensation any longer, she pulls Terri away, intending to retake the lead, and finds herself blindsided yet again.  She thinks she hears a quiet exclamation, rent from her own lungs without her permission, as Terri undoes the button on her trousers and promptly divests her of them, is certain she feels the world shift when Terri's hands settle upon Joan's newly bared hips.

Terri slides from the bed onto her knees, and presses her lips to the apex of Joan's thighs, the wet cotton a flimsy shield from the warmth of her mouth, and Joan very nearly collapses in on herself from sheer disbelief.

It is all Joan can do to step out of her trousers before Terri has pulled her underwear down to her ankles.  She takes Joan by the hips once more and looks up with wide, shining eyes, suddenly uncertain of herself. 

Joan has no frame of reference for this.  She's certain she must mirror Terri's expression of halting uncertainty, brow furrowed and lips half-parted, grasping for a way forward that she doesn't know how to want.

Slowly, Terri leans in, while Joan remains frozen.  She does not look away as she takes Joan's clit between her lips and flicks her tongue, even as Joan is certain her vission goes momentarily blurry around the edges.

Joan is...not terrified, exactly, but the feeling is comparable.  Something hovering on the edge of panic sits cold and restless in her veins, and her mind is getting away from her.  This shouldn't be happening, she thinks, not like this, because Joan was certain she knew what to expect from encounters like these, and it's not that she's unpleasantly surprised, only that she's surprised, and—oh!

Joan contracts, and threads her fingers through Terri's hair, perhaps a bit roughly.  Terri responds with an appreciative hum which sends a fresh wave of chills coursing through Joan, as pleasant as they are disarming.  It has been a long time, and not like this, never like this, never—

" _Terri_ ," Joan rasps, and her grip tightens, and for a moment she is blissfully apart from herself.  Distantly she can feel a mixture of pain and pleasure, physical and otherwise, the ecstasy of this moment with the agony of the party, but they are of no immediate concern to her.  With a little shudder she pulls Terri away from her and up towards her, and the world comes back into focus with Terri's arms flung about her shoulders and Terri's lips upon her neck.

Joan pushes Terri back onto her bed at long last, steadies herself on one elbow while she curls her free hand between Terri's legs.  Perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise to find her wet and wanting, but as she curls two fingers inside of Terri, and Terri throws back her head as she cries out, Joan is distantly aware of one last thread of tension coming mercifully undone.

Terri meets each flick of her wrist, digs her fingernails into Joan's arms and cries out _fuck_ and _yes_ and _more_ , and when Joan grows reckless enough to heed her request and thrusts a third finger inside of her, Terri quickly stops forming coherent words.

As she climaxes she takes Joan's face in her hands, and the nonsense she has been repeating gradually takes shape.  "Joan, Joan, Joan, Joan...." Terri breathes against her lips, again and again and again, and Joan is heady from the sound of her own name upon Terri's lips.

Terri drifts easily to sleep, but Joan lies awake until the first light of morning streams in through the shuttered window above them, idly tracing shapes with her fingertips across Terri's back.  Terri hums with contentment, stretches, and turns to face her.  She snakes an arm about Joan's waist and buries her head beneath Joan's chin.

Like it's nothing.  Like it's a normal thing to do.

Joan cannot move, cannot even breathe for a long moment, frightened that one wrong move will wake Terri and spoil the moment, frightened that Terri will realize what a terrible mistake she's made and want Joan to leave immediately, frightened that she ought to have done so already, ought never to have allowed herself to forget her place in the world so thoroughly.

Terri pokes her side, and Joan flinches.

"Get some sleep, Joan," she murmurs warmly.

Joan exhales slowly.  She shifts to wrap her arm around Terri's shoulders and with her free hand cradles Terri's head beneath her chin.

"All right," she agrees.  She realizes distantly that there are tears in her eyes, but whether she is weeping for the tragedy of the past, the terror for the future, or for the inconceivable beauty of the present, she cannot be certain.


End file.
